WordPress Theme Frameworks

For web designers who may want to use WordPress as a robust content management system, might want to review some of the newer WordPress theme frameworks that are available.

Theme frameworks are not particularily new as the Sandbox theme has been a standard for taking the basics of a WordPress page and then adding theme information (CSS) to the basic structure.

But some recent frameworks are more sophisticated and aimed at making the CMS features of WordPress easier to work with when there is a lot of development to do or a designer is responsible for creating a lot of WordPress sites for customers.

As in other programming and markup environments (JavaScript, CSS, AJax, etc.) a framework is a completely coded theme that can serve as the base for many projects. Often the framework can be added to (as with several WP theme frameworks) with child themes – a way of changing the look and function of the base framework, yet using its many resources. (Justin Tadlock)

Tadlock’s article “Why I created a WordPress theme framework“, provides a good understanding of WordPress theme frameworks. Of the theme frameworks I have reviewed [Thematic, Vanilla, Hybrid, and Carrington] I think there are some creative uses of these products. I particularly like the Carrington framework, even though I have not completed a child theme with it. But if you need to save time, but also have time to learn the framework, these could be valuable assets in creating solid WP based websites.

Links to each of the frameworks mentioned and others are located on the WordPress Theme Frameworks link stated above. By the way, I forgot to mention that these frameworks are free – as in open source. Thematic does offer commercial versions but it freely offers the base framework.

Web Content Accessibility Guidelines 2.0

On December 11, 2008, the W3C announced the WCAG 2.0 is now a W3C Recommendation. This is an important new component of everything we do as web designers. It is important that you read the documentation, collaborate with others in the program and outside in the developer community, and begin to understand the changes and the significance of the new standards for accessibility. A good starting point has been provided by Roger Johansson at 456 Berea St. The actual specification can be found at WCAG.

More on this later and expect to be working on this in all web scripting classes.

12 Notebook Tools for research

One of the most valuable tools for your learning environment is a digital notebook tool that is capable of capturing practically any digital file, image, video, or other type of presentation. Mashable.com has an excellent review of 12 notebook tools that should help you in choosing one of these tools for your personal needs. If you want to find new ways to manage information you choose to capture, this type of tool may be of value to your arsenal.

Web Design Magazines

Looking for places to hang? Smashing Magazine offers “42 Design/Tech magazines to read”. I often have difficulty getting started on a project or writing assignment and I go to my aggregator and read until I find inspiration. I always start with some that I know consistently spark an interest, but I do a lot of exploring for new ideas and just to initiate the get-started juices flowing.

Sometimes you may need to find a community or a person who offers regular news, tips, design wisdom, etc. to get you started on new ideas or just to keep up with what professionals are doing. The Smashing article lists a lot of sites I haven’t checked out yet – so if any of you read one I haven’t seen, let the rest of us know it was of value to you and why – when you get a chance of course!

Some of my regular spots to hang include:
Digital Web Magazine, a solid edited work of many of the top designer/developers, with topics on everything anyone has felt important to write about.
A List Apart, sponsored by Jeffrey Zeldman, is also an important source of invited guest authors, some of the best in the business here also.
Boxes and Arrows is a serious journal approach to peer-reviewed articles about design, info architecture, and related topics. It has been an important voice in the industry since 2001.
Vitamin is a newer community oriented approach to zines, focused on the web design/developer industry. Good articles, job boards, community forums, etc.
9 Rules is also a community oriented site that collects the “best of the web” with articles, practical tips, and news of the industry.

A group of sites that are industry references, specialty areas, and news about the industry include:
Read/Write/Web, a no-nonsense place to keep up with emerging web trends, web 2.0, and general news.
Wired, online and print versions (AID library) is one of my must reads. My personal subscription to the print version is running on about 12 years now!
TechCrunch, is about technology issues affecting our industy – that stuff we absolutely have to keep informed about to do our work.
Mashable specializes in everything social networking, and it does it with flare and depth. Their reporters give live views of conferences about this exciting aspect of the industry.
.net is another online and print magazine with some of the top guys in the industry such as Andy Clark and Andy Budd serving on its editorial board. One of several outstanding British publications, I catch this one in our library every month.
Lifehacker is the tech workers answer to organization processes such as Getting Things Done. Useful and informative information about how to keep yourself participating in the information explosion and to many due date deadlines!
Digg and Slashdot bring us user directed news about the industry – each with its own unique process, but driven by its user community as to what is published, and important to be published. At least one of these may be a mainstay, depending on which you like.

With all of these resources, find the ones that are meaningful to you, and find out who is behind the effort. Get to know the names of people communicating about the industry, as well as noted designers and developers whose work you respect and admire. Build yourself a community within your domain of interest.

WordPress 2.6 release

WordPress 2.6 was recently released and Hiveminds has a video with the new features.

Several new features include the abiliity to Post revisions – and go back to an earlier version to see if you might like it better. This works for collaborative blog entries as well as your personal entries. Just scroll down past options for a list of revisions – including dates and time written.

Press This is a bookmarklet you can install on your browser. When you are visiting a web site and want to copy some text, an image, or a video, press the bookmarklet to open a page and drag and drop the item(s) to a new post!

You can also now add captions to your images. When you place an image in your post a space for adding a caption will be there to capture your descriptions.

Other smaller changes and bug fixes are part of the release.

WordCamp Dallas

Today was the first day of WordCamp Dallas which began with the release of WordPress 2.5 and an introduction to its new features by Matt Mullenweg, founding developer of WordPress. This is a major release with a totally reworked administrative area and a greatly enhanced ability to manage images with a gallery function. The WordPress website is totally new also, featuring a simpler, more effective interface that gets right to the point.

I have been working with the new version for several days now (it has been available in a pre-release testing format) and it is an exciting product which is much more efficient and yet more sophisticated. It is easy to get used to the simpler menus and the great new writing section. So far my new blog is only operating on my development environment on my laptop, but it should be ready to go in a few more days.

There is another full day of presentations Sunday (March 30) with registration beginning at 9:30 am. Check the site for details if you have time to attend. The participants are leaders in blogging and bring a lot of experience to share with those who are new and beginning bloggers. There should be room for anyone to attend Sunday if they show up for registration.

WordCamp Dallas Reminder

I completed my registration for the WordCamp Dallas informal conference to be held in Frisco, Tx. March 29 – 30. I highly recommend all students interested in blogging and all things web-development to go to this convenient conference and do some valuable networking, as well as learn from experienced users and developers. Mark Mullenweb, founder of WordPress will be one of the speakers. For only $20 you get two days of group meetings and lots of networking opportunities. I look forward to seeing a bunch of IMD students at the conference.

WordCamp Dallas 2008

A unique opportunity for IMD students (and others) is the WordCamp Dallas event to be held in Frisco Saturday, March 29 – Sunday, March 30, 2008. WordCamp is an informal gathering of WordPress users where they “teach, learn, eat, drink and generally have fun with one another.” There have been dozens of these events throughout the world and this is the first opportunity for the Dallas/Ft.Worth area! The cost is $20 and there will be coffee and munchies, lunch, and t-shirts to take home. The event will be held at the George A. Purefoy Municipal Center in Frisco, Texas. To register and learn more about the gathering visit the website at http://dallas.wordcamp.org.

Inexpensive Video

I just learned about Flip Video, a $119 video camera that appears to produce good enough quality video (30 min) and it plugs directly into the USB port of a computer. It could be a real value for IMD students to implement original video clips in projects which would add meaning and value to your communication.

Check them out at http://www.theflip.com/products_flip_video.shtml

The models shown below are $149, but there is also a model for $119.

User-Centered Blogs

This collection of top web sites includes some of my regulars, so I figured this list of sites are worth sharing with others. Jessica Hupp of Virtual Hosting offers 100 blogs related to user-centered issues in the design and development of websites. Categories include the top 10, accessibility, human computer interaction, web standards, user experience and interaction, user-centered design, and user-centered Writing and content. Surely you will find a few new gems for your collections in this list!